Death and the World
by rynthewin
Summary: In 1941, Hermione Granger came found journal that held the secrets to being the Master of Death. Grindelwald's men took her father and left her to be murdered but she survived. After traveling for two years looking for the Hallows, she decides to go to Hogwarts-where she meets a teenage Dark Lord who possesses the Resurrection Stone.
1. Prologue, Part One

Notes: This is a rewrite of the fic Temperance and the Tower, which I cowrote with my best friend years ago and was on hiatus. However, I got permission from him to write this on my own (with him as my beta) so I am very excited to see this unfold! This is the first book in the Temperance and the Tower series titled Death and the World. No specific triggers for this chapter, but there will be graphic triggers later such as non-descriptive rape by one of Grindelwald's generals in the next chapter, eating disorders, violence, etc. If you want me to summarize a triggering chapter for you so you can avoid it, feel free to message me.

Full summary: In 1941, Hermione Granger and her father came into the possession of a journal that held the secrets to being the Master of Death. Grindelwald's men took her father and left her to be tortured and murdered by one of Grindelwald's generals, a perverted man named Emmerich Hesseline. However, Hermione survived and escaped with the journal.

She spent nearly two years traveling across Europe and gathering information about the Hallows before going to Britain to meet the family that rejected her squib father and trace the origins of the Hallows Quest. However, quests are full of fateful meetings and when Hermione decided to escape her intense security by going to Hogwarts she had no idea she would be meeting a teenage Dark Lord possessing one of the very Hallows she had dedicated her life to destroying.

Hermione and Tom learn to reluctantly work together on solving the mystery of the Hallows Quest in order to ensure their survival. Whether they can learn to trust each other, however, is a completely different matter.

* * *

Her pockets were lighter than they usually were on Sundays. Usually Mayor Heiland and his wife paid Hermione a bit of money to watch their three (spoilt) children while they went and volunteered at the local church in cleaning and setting up for the services. However, they had come back early. Their serious expressions told her all she needed to know.

"Times are getting harder, Hermione," said the mayor, handing her a smaller bit of money than usual as she watched the wife wrap the kids in light sweaters due to the unusual August chill "We're all having to make sacrifices."

"I understand," she said, working very hard to keep a straight face. It didn't help that, when putting on her old cloak that was now too short for her, Mrs. Heiland wrapped up some loaves of bread and salami to take home with her. Not that it wouldn't be useful, but it seemed like she and her Papa had to live off less and less as the Muggle war went on.

She headed home, ignoring the looks of regret that Frau Heiland gave her as she left, heading out onto the dirt road. She hated how dirty her boots were and missed the old stone streets of Tubigen. It was mostly known as a university town for the Muggles-but to the wizards it was a research hub and home to most of the magical academic societies in Germany.

Her father was disowned by his mother as soon as he turned seventeen but it had not stopped him from studying wizarding particularly Arcane Studies and having knowledge of many different languages. It was studying languages where he met her Muggle mother, Maria. She had taught him German and High German even as she prepared to give birth to Hermione. She'd died when Hermione was two, but she and her father had made due-especially once it became clear that Hermione was magical and could help her father tame and open the books locked by magic that he could not access.

But as Grindelwald rose to power he'd quickly begun censoring and rounding up researchers and academics of all stripes. She had her father had finally fled to a small house in a remote area of the Black Forest after a brutal murder of a Muggleborn couple occurred and they were left bleeding in the wizarding section of the city.

That was three years ago, and she'd be fifteen in a month. It seemed like so long ago, however, since she'd lived in the city and yet she still felt out of sorts here.

She opened the door to their hideaway home, thinking that maybe she'd have sandwiches for lunch and dinner and save the food to cook till her father came home. However, when she opened the door she found him reading on the couch.

"Papa!" she said, hurrying over to him and giving him a hug.

He squeezed her back. "You are back early," he noted, but he sounded more pleased than upset.

"You need to shave," she chided when she pulled back from the hug.

"I was gone and didn't have you to remind me," he said. "It was nice seeing fellow colleagues again-your old Transfiguration tutor, Hans, is still alive-but I missed you too much. I'm glad it wasn't long."

Her father was part of a small group of academics that were on the "people of interest" list by the Hallowed Guard due to their academic work, their blood status, or both-except for those still in society who brought their secret works to the council. It was a small resistance for them to meet and discuss any work they had done. Her father and her still did what analysis they could even with the few materials they had. Luckily her father still got translation jobs from Muggles and he occasionally had access to new texts to study.

"I can't wait till I get to go," she said, a bit wistful. "I think I might do warding and arithmancy research though. Or maybe create new spells."

"That's my girl," he said, proud. He noticed the wrapped articles she'd set aside on the side table to hug him, and reached over to unwrap them. "Went to the store?"

"The Heilands came back early. They're running out of money too, though Mrs. Heiland pitied me enough to give me this," she said.

Her father's face looked a bit grim but he quickly put on a smile. "It's all right, we'll make do. And we have some meat and bread! It'll hold us over for a while, and that's all that matters." He went and put up the food and she put the money in their money jar, miserable at how empty it was.

"Don't fret," he said, giving her a kiss on the top of her head, his hair brown and bushy as his own. "Someone gave me a journal you might be interested in. He was on the run and could only stay a little while, but he had to leave his things so he could move more quickly without being detected. The books weren't in my areas of expertise, but I figured you'd like this. From what I can tell, it's the journal of a priest in training from the tenth century."

"Really?" she asked, turning around and taking his hands. "Where is it? I want to look at it!"

He chuckled. "Come then, I put it in the library. It's on the table waiting for you." He laughed even more when she hurried past the staircase and entryway into the library.

Technically, it was supposed to be a sitting room, but as they had no need of one it had been converted into their library and study. It was, to be fair, far too cramped, but it had a beautiful window and a fireplace that was never used and far more decorative. It was cozy, and he came in to find Hermione puzzling over the journal already with a piece of paper in hand to begin translating.

"I'm glad you like it," he said, and he sat down in the worn but very stuffed chair in the corner to begin some of his own reading. The two of them descended into silence as they read, each focused on their own project.

Hermione was always the type to quickly become focused, so it was no surprise to her that at some point it became too dark for her to read without lighting so she lit some of the candles to do so.

The journal's writer was very boring and rather pretentious. He was a twenty-something wizard who was the most sacrosanct priest-in-training she could imagine. Sneaking out to sleep with nearby local ladies, drinking, stealing-he seemed to really have no morals at all. It seemed that he was the stepson of a man locally feared along with his two brothers and he clearly _worshipped_ the ground his stepfather walked on.

However, at about ten that evening, she was reading and then stopped as she turned the page of an entry. Gideon Uther was discussing how his stepfather and his brothers were making a symbol for themselves and they had finally succeeded in doing so and his father had planned to tell him much more about their "plans" once he returned home-his father, apparently, in a local magical war that was having a lot of casualties. She didn't remember it discussed in any history she'd read, but she'd look again later to see.

She turned the page, however, and saw a symbol that had become hauntingly familiar to her: a triangle with a line vertically down the center of it and a circle around the line but within in the triangle, _the Deathly Hallows symbol that had been adopted by Grindelwald and his Elder Squad._

She stopped at first, thinking it had to be a forgery or something added at a later date. There was no way that this had just been left behind for her father to find.

And, at that, she paused. There was no way it had been just left. The symbol itself was very obviously in the text, even if someone could not read Latin. Was it a forgery? In this era it probably would have done well for Grindelwald to legitimize himself with documentation. Had this been the reason the scholar had to flee so quickly?

This symbol was far older than Grindelwald-connected to the story of Death and the Three Brothers from _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_ and were connected to the old legend of the Deathly Hallows. Any historian or researcher has heard of it-an old conspiracy theory that searching for these elusive items would make them the Master of Death.

It had been assumed that he'd just taken the symbol for the fear factor of death it represented and its old origins. However, the man who had left it had been forced to flee...and left this behind, something potentially incriminating...

She hurried out of the makeshift library and to the kitchen, where her father was cooking up some eggs for them for dinner.

"I know why he left the journal," she said. "I also think I know why he was fleeing."

He turned off the stove and came over. "What is it?"

She flipped to the page, for once not careful of the very obvious age of this text, to the page in question showing the Deathly Hallows symbol. "I don't think this is a forgery. This journal belong to the stepson of the man who created this symbol-for him and his two other twins."

Jace's eyes got big, and he went and washed his hands, carefully dried them, and came back to carefully touch the paper. "It's not a forgery. This really is really old. The dates said the tenth century?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. "I haven't finished it yet but what if Grindelwald believes in the Hallows? What if he is one of those questers?"

"Nonsense," he said. "No one with sense believes in that old fairytale. It's the product of people too afraid of death to face their mortality."

She looked at the journal. "This is real, though. And this symbol is real and he's saying nothing of death. He's acting like it's a family symbol. Papa...there are stranger magical things in the world. They may not be quite as mythical as they say, but there may be something real enough for Grindelwald to search for..." And that made her pause and hurry to their stack of newspapers that they managed to have brought or sent to them much, much later than they appeared.

"Hermione?" he asked as she dug through the papers. She put three of them on the table.

"Look, here is says that these historians-perfectly respectable pureblood historians who followed him-are taken into custody for suspicious traitorous activity. But Lorimer researched old magical objects and Reichard studied magical places in Germany as old as you can get till recently. Maybe they didn't do anything at all!" And she put that newspaper aside and showed him another one. "And this is Grindelwald cleaning out the Munich magical museum. Why would he do that? Unless he's looking for something. He's been taking researchers and looking at old magical historical sites!"

Her father, normally a cheery man, suddenly looked very grim. His recently-appearing wrinkles were deep in his face as he looked at the old newspapers. "This means, then, that we have an item that the guard are looking for. No one saw me take it so we, luckily, are safe, but we must make sure that no one knows that we have this."

"Maybe we should move?"

He shook his head. "No one knows that we are here. We'll be fine."

She bit her lip but nodded. "Okay. But if he wants it why don't we look at it together and see what it's about?"

"Food first," he said, serving them a very late dinner-but they were always far more interested in studying than keeping regular meal and sleeping hours. She quickly downed her meal and anxiously waited for her father to finish his before she cleared the table and cleaned the dishes in record time.

By the time she was done, her father was looking over her written translations and had begun looking over the book too. They both worked from where she'd ended, at the Hallows symbol.

Quickly, they learned that this was the symbol for Gideon's stepfather and his stepuncles, who, in two entries later, boasted as the most powerful men in England-Antioch, Cadmus, and Ignotus Peverell. And as they translated more, it became more and more apparent the tale of the three brothers was about these men.

"There is a grave in Godric's Hollow for Ignotus Peverell," said Jace. "The dates don't match, though. It's listed as a century after this. Perhaps it is a forgery."

"Or perhaps the date on the grave is inaccurate," she replied. "If there is some real Deathly Hallows quest as they say some of the legends may have become inaccurate but accepted as fact."

Her father looked very troubled in the candlelight. "Hermione, quests are not things taken lightly by witches and wizards. They're rare and if you go on a quest then it's believed that you have forces of destiny and bigger magics working on you-Arthur, Merlin, Beowulf, and many mythological stories discuss them. Not all of them are false, and many of them are far more true than Muggles are aware of. I know you're not a big fan of divination, but the prophecies that preemptively prepare for these sorts of things are true. If there is a quest then we want no part of it. We need to rid ourselves of this thing"

She snorted. "I can believe in quests but not the idea of fateful journeys. But it's likely the story of these powerful men was turned into a legend."

"Either way, let's translate this and see what it says. We can keep the translation but get rid of this thing," her father said.

"What if Grindelwald gets it? Whatever he wants I would rather him not get," she said, looking seriously down at her notes.

"It matters little, really," said her father. "No one knows we have it."

They agreed that they would do something about it, but her father began quietly connecting the dots about why these men may not have been in history.

"There was a lot burned in those years as well as after when the Muggles began looking to burn wizards and witches. Some of it was to hide information to protect themselves, some of it was by Muggles trying to destroy our knowledge, but also some of it was opportunistic to erase certain people from history. A lot of unsavory history of various families and people were burned to try and legitimize things. This may have been one of them-larger things were destroyed by burning and erasure in those years. But there were signs in some areas of Normandy and England of war. There is written reports of wizards and witches fearing for their safety in this era, especially in England. Some places were supposedly under siege but no one knew why. We had assumed Muggles but, of course, that is wizards and their fears. It makes _so_ much more sense for it to be other wizards."

"We shouldn't jump to conclusions, but it makes sense," she said.

"Also, the Hallows Quest is a very old tradition and it has a bit of a cult status," said her father. "It's not taken seriously anymore as much but there are very famous historians, and even one now, Jemina Highland, is famous for swearing up and down that the Hallows are real. Grindelwald clearly believes it if he's tracing documentation. Questers wear the Hallows symbol on them to identify themselves to other questers, who often got into duels over supposed artifacts. There's rumors that it's connected to the Fountain of Fair Fortune and there are clues and hidden secrets to finding them. It was considered knightly to go on it in the sixteenth century. There are rumors that the wand has been passed around in history, and I can believe, Hermione, that there is a very powerful wand around that is being duelled for and killed for. However, no cloak that hides you from death or a stone that calls back the dead have ever been found."

Hermione paused. "A wand?"

"The Death Stick, or the Elder Wand, as it's called, is a historical wand that you can trace through several people. It's one of the only things that really historians or questers can swear by to make their work legitimate," he said. He went and brought back a few books and showed her passages mentioning it.

She and her father had this thing that gave the details on how to commit such horrors. And Grindelwald wanted to be the Master of Death and do these things as well? She felt sick at the thought of it.

Then she reached a passage where Gideon returned home to his stepfather's home and visited his uncles.

 _"The dead things were guarding the gates and doors, and while they looked living their eyes gave away that they were Inferi. I confess that while I am moved by the skill of my father and uncles in combining their powers to be necromancers of such great talent, these things terrified me. Clearly I was not alone, as the servants avoided them too."_

 _"Your mother is in the sitting room," said one of the things as I passed. I startled, and while I knew he had been commanded to tell me, the sheer lifelike reality of these things were haunting. But I quickly headed to the sitting room, and found my mother and my uncles there..."_

She stopped. "Inferi? _Lifelike_ Inferi? There's so many of them" she said. "He described a dozen of them a few lines down. No one has the skill to raise that many, and you can't get inferi raised by different people to work together." Even though Germany and other parts of Europe were far less fearful of Dark Magic than in Britain, she could tell her father didn't like discussing it. However, it was fairly common knowledge that the most Inferi ever raised was six. It was one of the only known lines that the Dark Arts had not really been able to cross yet.

"It's concerning," he said. "Deeply."

Her father's eyes became too tired to translate by candlelight, so she did it on her own. It only got worse. A week into Gideon's visit to his family, his stepfather came back and took him to the battlefield.

 _"Gideon, let me show you the greatness that we have made. There is a reason I sent you to the priesthood-we will be seen as evil soon enough but I wish you to speak well for us. You should, however, see what we have done before you return," my father told me._

 _He took my arm and we Apparated to a field. There were dead all around and the smell of flesh and blood overwhelmed the smell of the wildflowers._

" _Watch," father commanded, and went to his brothers who were waiting for him._

 _It began with my Uncle Ignotus holding the cloak in front of my Uncle Cadmus. He turned the stone three times and then touched the stone to the cloak. The cloak shimmered and darkened and then shades rushed out, wailing, as if the cloak were a gate from Hell calling sinners forth._

 _"As they just died, it is easy to call so many," said father. He then raised his great wand, the wand made of wood of the elder tree, and pointed it at the wailing and whirling shades. There was no spell that I could tell, and the glowed blindingly bright...and the shades were forced forth into the corpses before us. The bodies on the ground jerked, shuddered, and began slowly rising. And my father and uncles laughed and father ordered them to take up arms. After his command, the dead all raised their wands to the sky and their triangular symbol flashed brightly up the sky._

 _'It is an ugly business,' said father, coming back over to me. 'But we will make a great kingdom with soldiers that can merely be reborn again. Any enemies those at the castle send will merely be used to make our army grow. You will be great as well, Gideon, as my stepson. I could not have asked for better than in you.'_

 _I think he knew me afraid, because he took me back and they gave me drinks and fed me well. I am ashamed that I cowered in the fact of the great power they had made…I had no real belief in God despite my vocation but I wondered, in those moments, if this was an abomination against the creator. I was glad that my work was to be talking and speaking in their favor, not living with this. I deeply pitied my cousin Vivienne, who lived with Uncle Cadmus and his dead wife in their manor."_

The Master of Death isn't immortality," she said, shaking. "It's to build an army of Inferi."

"If this is true, then this may be the only thing that actually tells how to get the Hallows to work." She reached out to him and took his hand. "We can't stay here with this. He probably knows it is important and people are looking for it. We need to move elsewhere and lay low for a while. Maybe even destroy this thing."

He took her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. "Hermione, no one saw me take this. No one knows I have it, let alone where we are hiding. We will be fine, all right?"

"I'm scared," she said. "What if he did get this?" She turned the page and found another drawing. Gideon liked to illustrate, and he'd drawn the scene-it was awful and grotesque. He also had drawn the three items-the cloak, the stone, and the wand. The cloak and the stone didn't look like much of anything, but the wand...

Hermione reached and grabbed the newspaper that they'd set aside in order to translate. On the cover was Lord Grindelwald in full regalia talking to someone, and his wand was out in a respectable salute-a false truce he'd break in less than a year. However, _the wand looked just like the one in the journal_ : long with knobs that looked like berries and a triangle handle end rather than a usual square one.

"Merlin," said her father when she pointed to Grindelwald's wand with the journal opened up to Gideon's drawing. "He has the Death Stick. No wonder he's been rumored to do such impossible things.."

"He's looking for them," she said. "Clearly, and who knows what he might do to get this."

He sighed, but gave her a small smile and petted her hair a little. "Hermione, go to sleep. This will be less anxiety inducing in the morning. It's dark out, late, and we just learned something very big. But we are far, far away from danger. All right?"

"Yes, Vatti," she said, a term she used less often than Papa, usually when she disagreed with him.

"Regardless," he said. "I am going to bed," he said. "So if you stay up be quiet, as I have things to do tomorrow morning in town, a project to begin, and you have to prepare your lesson for the children for Tuesday. Not sleeping isn't going to help with that."

She smiled but she took the candles and the journal to the library table. She heard him chuckling as he went upstairs. "When you're done with it, since it's important, put it in the hiding place, all right?"

"Yes," she said absently. They had a secret cupboard in the living room that opened up by touching a secret place in the baseboards. It led to a hiding place in the wall behind the bookshelf where they stored some of their more valuable documents in the event that the house was ever raided. She knew she would be putting it in there-but she had no intentions of sleeping yet.

It was good for her that she did not sleep, as she saw outside first, late at night just before sunrise, the soft _lumos_ lights in the trees outside. She almost didn't believe it at first, thinking it was a trick of her candle-but as they began moving she realized no. There were wizards outside. _They were here._


	2. Prologue, Part Two

Long authors note: **TRIGGER WARNING FOR RAPE AND TORTURE OF AN UNDERAGE GIRL. Also, suicide and thoughts of suicide.** I made it as vague as possible for both my own mental health and also because to go into graphic detail is just voyeuristic in a way that is not okay. However, this is a life-altering moment for Hermione and is what drives her throughout the Temperance and the Tower series. From the very first inception of this story, Grindelwald was always a peripheral villain that she has to stop from getting the Hallows-however, Hermione's true villain and the person she is most afraid of his her torturer and rapist, Emmerich Hesseline. He is one of the main causes of her losing a lot of trust in people and the world, inability to find physical or emotional comfort in others, and her emotional trauma that both motivates her beyond her physical limits to destroy the Hallows but also makes her passively suicidal and self-destructive. He is not the only cause-she was on the run on foot for quite a long time and she experienced horrific things then too-but a lot of Hermione's growth (with her family, with Tom, and with her friends) will be getting over the trauma Hesseline caused.

I wish to explain why rape is such a big part of Hermione's storyline and characterization in the Temperance and the Tower series. Rape is an often undiscussed aspect of war that is ignored due to the very stigma around it, and in the 1940's Hermione is certainly going to be facing that. In genocide studies there is the idea of genocidal rape. Rape is not always a byproduct of war-often it is a systematic military strategy meant to destroy morale, force people to flee, and bring shame and potential disownment from the family/culture to those who have been raped. Hesseline is allowed to carry on being a serial killer because it instills terror in Grindelwald's enemies-and you can be rest assured that probably a lot of the Hallowed Guard and Elder Squad also use it as a tactic of violence as well.

I've seen a lot of fics where rape occurs and it is the love interest who fixes the trauma and all is okay. Or, worse, it is just gratuitous violence to add more angst. That is not how it is going to be in this fic-Hermione will suffer from after effects for the rest of her life. Her growth will come from within and will have a basis of trust with many people in her life that will help her heal as much as she can. Perhaps I've given away Hermione's character arc in the first book, which is the establishment of trust and ending her rejecting the aid and company of others, but I feel like it is important to note Ras and I didn't put this in for shock value. I have experienced sexual assault personally and one in four women will be raped. While it is difficult for me to write about this topic, I really want to see a fanfic where sexual assault is treated realistically rather than as a trope, plot device, or is handled so badly that I cringe. I will do my best to do so in this fic.

You will find, actually, that I have very deep feelings about romanticizing sexual violence and abuse. The Tomione fandom (and a lot of ships in general, really) have a lot of problems about romanticizing sexual violence and abuse to use as a substitute for sexual tension. You will not find that here-Tom is unnerving and creepy and everyone calls him out for it. But that's for later.

 _If you'd like a summary so you can skip the chapter for triggering reasons it is: Hermione's home is attacked and she hides the journal. Her father is taken and she is hurt by Hesseline, but she blasts him and knocks him out. She manages to get the journal and hide in a secret compartment. The guards come and take Hesseline to safety and she gets a moment to get her things. She is bleeding to death so rather than them get the documents, she sets the house on fire. However, the Heiland Muggle family save her life and think she's a Jewish girl and agree to hide her. She decides to go after the Hallows and ultimately to Britain to meet her family._

* * *

There was so very little time. Hermione blew out the candles and, having no time to open the compartment downstairs to hide the journal, threw it into the old fireplace. It was never used so there weren't even ashes, but who would look in a fireplace for anything?

"Papa, they're outside! Get up!" she yelled, hurrying up the stairs to wake him up. She summoned two bags as her father got up, stepping into his shoes and hurrying downstairs in front of her to escape out the back. Once they got out, she'd Apparate them away.

Her father was halfway down the stairs, Hermione at his heels, when the door was blasted open. Debris flew everywhere and they both froze at the sudden blast. They paused a moment too long, their ears ringing as the debris and dust filled the room. Hermione heard "Crucio!" before she even saw anyone through the haze and heard her father fall.

She screamed as she watched his lanky body writhe in pain. Hermione raised her wand to fire back at them, but the soldiers were faster. She didn't even get to finish her spell before she was hit head-on with a crucio.

Hermione didn't know she could scream so loudly until that very moment. The noise tore out of her lungs, burning the back of her throat even as the Cruciatus snapped and fired through her nerves. It felt like forever as she kicked and convulsed before the pain ceased. She was left sobbing and shaking all over. She didn't remember falling down the stairs, but her back felt bruised from the hard wooden stairs. When the agony faded to a dull roar and she could think again, she realized a man was laughing, with a gleeful leer of yellow teeth. A quick verbalized spell she didn't catch and she felt like she was stuck on her back with glue.

"Let me go! Hermione! HERMIONE! Don't you dare touch my daughter! Leave her alone, you animal!" screamed her father. Hermione tried to turn her head, hearing him being taken out the front door.

Three men blocked her view from looking but she could still faintly hear her father screaming and crying outside. They raised their wands, the eerie glow revealing the dark-gray uniforms of the Elder Squad, not the light blue outfits of the standard Hallowed Guard. The medals and insignia pinned to their chests suggested they were very high up indeed. The man who had delighted at her screams was closest and staring down at her, no longer laughing but the leer was still present. He was close enough she could pale blue eyes with laugh lines at the corners-amusement clearly born from sadism.

"What do we do with the girl, brother?" asked the leering Elder Squad member. He had enough medals that they lightly clinked as he turned to his brother. "Any orders on her?" The man sounded hopeful, looking up and down her. Her stomach dropped when she realized exactly who he was. He was infamous, and no matter how much Grindelwald tried to hide his exploits from the papers, he was recognizable-shaggy blonde hair and a cragged face set with pale blue eyes: Lieutenant-General Emmerich Hesseline. He was famous for targeting and murdering young girls in awful ways.

Hermione began hyperventilating, remembering the ten-year-old girl found thirty miles away from Tubingen in the forest, her body used profanely. She had been cut to pieces with insults carved into her skin. _That's going to be me. Oh Merlin, please no. Please let him leave._

"We don't have time for your games," said Hesseline's brother, who looked just like him, minus the leer.

Hesseline waved him off. "Take the old man and put him away. That should only require two men and we have plenty more. I'll be done with the girl and have cleaned it all up before you return. You won't even know what happened when you come back to box up all of the squib's books."

"Fine. But for the love of Morgana you better be done before we get back," relented Hesseline's brother, shooing the other men out towards the door. None of them looked back as they left.

Hesseline laughed. "Don't worry, I'll be quick tonight."

"No, don't leave me!" she begged, looking at the guards leaving. "Wait! Papa! PAPA!" she screamed, panicking now, and she was hit by another brief crucio. At some point she distantly heard the sounds of apparition. By the time he let up the curse, there were no more sounds of struggle outside. The house was horribly quiet except for her crying.

She tried to reach for the wand that had fallen from her twitching fingers under the crucio, lifting her arm shakily from the glue spell, but a heavy foot came slamming down upon her wrist and smacked it to the floor again. She screamed and struggled to get up, but Hesseline leaned down enough to backhand her across the face so hard that her vision grayed momentarily. When it cleared, she found her face inches away from Hesseline's.

"We're going to have fun, aren't we sweetheart?" he asked, his face seeming to crack open in a wide, yellowed grin that drew bile to the back of her throat.

He drew a knife from his belt and played with the blade between his fingers, pausing only to hit or push her back down again each time she tried to fight her way from beneath him.

The knife gave away that she had not been wrong in identifying him. His eyes seemed to light up at the look on her face. "Oh, you know who I am, hmm? Then you know what's next. It's such a Muggle way," he said, slicing open her clothes, "but it's so much more personal than a wand, don't you think?"

Hermione was hit with the reality that she had _nothing left to live for_. She was supposed to die here tonight for the pleasure of this sick man. They'd taken her father and she was as good as dead in the hands of this murderer. But in this moment, with this knowledge, all she could think was _not like this. I will not die like this!_ Determination burned through her, and she held on to that hope and courage. She would need it, to survive this. _I know what they want and I won't give it to them_ , she thought. _I won't let this beast kill me. If I live, I'll find my father._

His breathing grew heavier, and he put the knife aside and began ripping her clothes open with his bare hands. She snarled at him, fighting back with every ounce of strength that she had left. _I will live. I won't let him kill me._

Her resistance wasn't enough to stop him. He picked up his knife again and began cutting into her skin. She refused to give him the satisfaction of letting him know how much it hurt, holding onto her determination.

She could barely remember what followed, save that it hurt more than anything she had ever dreamed herself capable of comprehending, in far worse and different ways than the Cruciatus curse had. It felt like the blade was everywhere all at once. Tears leaked out of her eyes even as she snarled soundlessly at him, long past screaming. The remnants of her clothes were wet amid a slowly-spreading pool of blood as he carved red graffiti across every available surface except her face-"You still have that baby fat to your face, no reason to ruin it"-like her body was his own personal canvas.

"You're a brave little thing, aren't you? It'll be fun taking my time to break you. I wondered if you were a bit too old, but this is more fun than I expected."

He undid his belt.

She hated him. Hated him more in that moment than she had ever wished to hate. _If I survive and get out, I will find and kill him._ _I will cut him open far worse than he ever did me._

If she could only just reach over, she could get her wand. She knew without looking where it was, calling to her to use it and escape this hell. She waited, something desperate and predatory growing inside her even as he violated her. That small little window of opportunity would come, she thought. She felt herself mentally divorce from the nightmare she was in, feeling like she was not even in her body anymore. She was ice cold, unfeeling. Hesseline was distracted. If she found a chance, she could get her wand and kill him, her injured wrist (and all the other hurts she'd incurred) be damned.

He closed his eyes, shuddering, and she knew it was now or death. _This is my moment!_ She ripped her arm up off the floor and grabbed her wand. Hermione screamed out the first curse that came to mind-"Expulso!" She could see the whites of his eyes as the spell exploded against his abdomen. A mess of blood and gore spattered across the wall and wooden steps and he was slammed into the wall, eyes closed and blood seeping from his stomach.

She took one moment to grin in shaky satisfaction as she watched his internal organs ooze and pool out onto the floor before she focused on herself.

There was blood everywhere. She was sure more than a good bit of it was hers but in this moment, she couldn't tell where hers ended and his began. She knew she had to get dittany, a washcloth, and hide in the downstairs compartment before the men came back. There were supplies in the compartment...could she fit?

 _Damn it, if I can't I'll blast more room till I can._

Hermione took her wand in her nondominant hand and summoned the journal from the library. She winced when it jarred her injured wrist but ignored it. She stumbled over to the bookshelf behind the couch. Touching the spot at the baseboards, the compartment opened and she went inside. She did a quick cleaning spell on the blood trail she'd left behind her before closing the compartment door.

She curled up in the dark, wanting to scream and slowly beginning to sit in a dripping, wet pool. She'd die of blood loss at this rate. Hermione stifled a sob as she lit a faint lumos, her hand shaking. She located the bag with the bandages, dittany, and extra clothes. She used one of her father's shirts to try and stop the blood flow. There wasn't enough clothes, and _oh Merlin_ she hurt where she'd been violated.

 _Don't think about it. Don't think about it_ , she thought as she got the worst of the cuts, dripping the bottle of dittany carefully in the dim light. There was only so much...and she was in no condition to make it out.

Was she going to die here? The thought made her sob, and she hurriedly did a muffling spell and put the sleeve of her father's shirt in her mouth to quiet herself further as she became unable to hold back the tears. Hermione was shaking so badly she could barely bandage herself.

 _At least I have the journal. If I die at least they won't have it._

The sound of boots on the floor of the entryway alerted her that the guards had returned. Immediately there was a desperate cry when Hesseline's brother found him bleeding out on the floor. "Get him to Munich!" he said, choking. "Grubber, come with me. We are going to find that little bitch and what my brother does will be child's play compared to the torture I'll put her through," he snarled.

 _Please let my cleaning spell be enough to have hidden my trail. Please let it be enough._

She had no idea how long they searched for her, but she eventually heard one of them say. "Maybe she Apparated."

"In her condition? Did you see that blood?" scoffed Hesseline's brother.

"Could have been Emmerich's," said another.

"Maybe," he admitted. "Come with me to Munich-I'm heading to my brother and once we know of his situation we'll gather more people to search the area for her and pack up the house completely." She heard Hesseline's brother choke again and she smiled in vindictive pleasure at his pain. They wanted to hurt her and _had_ hurt her but she had won-the journal and their most important documents were with her, bleeding on them or no.

She was so dizzy, but she couldn't come out till they left. It felt like forever. She had gone in and out of focus several times by the time she heard them Apparate away. After hearing no sounds of people or returning soldiers, she opened the compartment door and stumbled out, slipping in her own blood. Holding onto the journal with a death grip, she stumbled up the stairs and into her room. She grabbed the emergency escape bag she and her father had prepared, stuffing the journal and documents in there.

But how was she going to escape? They'd be here soon and she was in no condition to Apparate. She couldn't focus anymore or had the energy to move. The Hallowed Guard couldn't get these documents but she couldn't get them out.

She only had one choice. It gave her bitter satisfaction to know all of her father's books and the journal would go up in flames-and she'd rather die than be taken alive.

" _Incendio,"_ she gasped out, raising her wand. Hermione watched the flames spread down the hall toward the library. She'd never let them have what they were looking for. Despite knowing it was her best option, a part of her was afraid to die. She grabbed her bag and crawled into her bed, wanting to die in the comfort of her covers. She summoned over her stuffed rabbit and a picture of her parents. She held them close for comfort as she waited for death, her last thoughts being that she hoped her father would be all right.

Opening her eyes and seeing familiar walls was the last thing she had expected. She had hoped she would find herself in a field of flowers, before the pearly gates, fires of Hell, or maybe seeing her Mother waiting for her on the other side. Instead, she woke up in the mayor's guest bedroom, Frau Heiland standing next to someone who was clearly a doctor.

"This is my brother-in-law. You're safe, Hermione," said Frau Heiland. "My husband and I saw the fire and got you out. We won't let them find you here. Jewish or no, what happened...that's. Oh, you poor child," she said, choking. Hermione felt dirty-she couldn't even speak about what had happened to Hermione-but she was to tired to care.

"You nearly died of blood loss and you got some bad burns, beyond your other injuries, but you survived the worst of it. It's been a few days," said the doctor. "You are a very strong young woman to have survived. You've made it through the worst and you'll be fine."

Hermione couldn't help it, but she choked out a sob. "I don't know if I want to live or not," she admitted. "I burned the house so they couldn't get my father's papers. They took him. I don't want to live like this."

Frau Heiland quickly wiped the tears from her face and sat next to Hermione on the bed. "He's probably alive, then, if they needed his work. He would want you to live. Any father would."

It was hard for Hermione to argue with that logic but...she carefully raised her arm and unwrapped one of the bandages, despite the doctor's protests. She looked at the word _whore_ carved into it with messy, English letters. She couldn't stop how quickly her breathing came and slowly sat up-but then felt sharp pain _down there_ at the movement. She nearly threw up.

"I was…" she finally got out, when she could speak. "I didn't want it but...am I okay?"

The already thick tension in the room got worse, and Frau Heiland looked at the doctor grimly. "You had some tearing," he said in a soft voice. "We won't know if you're expecting for a little while longer but we'll make sure. If you are…" he glanced at Frau Heiland, "I have a friend of mine in Munich who would be willing to take care of it as a favor to me."

Pregnancy, baby, potentially pregnant after all that horror. _I'm only fourteen!_ A dam of emotions she hadn't known she'd been holding back broke. She felt like she couldn't breathe. "Please, please, I need a few minutes alone," she gasped, the reality of everything that had happened crashing down on her like a tidal wave. She began sobbing hysterically even before they had managed to finish leaving and closing the door behind them.

Her father was gone, she'd been hurt in more ways than she could imagine, but she was alive and they hadn't gotten what they'd wanted-had they? She quickly looked around and there on the bedside table were the things she'd been holding-the picture frame, the stuffed rabbit, her wand, and her bag. Slightly panicked, she quickly reached for the bag. The Muggles wouldn't have been able to open it but she wanted to make sure it was still in there.

She laughed through her tears. The Guard may have hurt her but she still had the journal Grindelwald wanted and she knew what he was looking for. As soon as she was even a little bit better and could leave, she was going to get her things and do everything in her power to make sure that Grindelwald did not get the rest of the Hallows. She had nothing left to lose, now, and everything to get revenge for. She'd get her father back and would destroy the Hallows so that Grindelwald could never raise an army like he wanted.

She took the picture and put it in the bag as well. She put the wand under her pillow to not alarm the Muggles. Lastly, she grabbed the rabbit, planning to put him in the bag too, but she paused.

 _Plutarch._ He was cleaned of the blood, though there was a bit of staining and was slightly burned. He had been a gift to her when she was four years old from her uncle. She and her father had ever gone to Britain once and she met her Uncle Redge. She barely remembered him-he'd been a teenager then-but she remembered him seeing that she liked the rabbit in the store and getting it for her. He'd had such a happy smile that she had liked it.

Besides her father, her only family left was in Britain. Her maternal grandmother and grandfather were dead to her for disowning her father. Still, her uncle may take her in. When she had exhausted all of her routes on the continent chasing information on the Hallows, she'd have to go back to the origin of the legend: Britain. However long it took, she'd eventually go see her uncle. Even if he turned her away, it gave her hope that someone somewhere might be willing to see her alive.


	3. Chapter One

AN: So this was delayed due to midterms, finals, and bad lupus flares. However, finally, it's out! Trigger warning for disordered eating.

Chapter One  
September 1943

She woke up, startled, at the sound of knitting needles hitting the tiled hospital floor. She blinked a few times, trying to orient herself as she woke up, even as she was reaching under her pillow for her wand. She felt disoriented-and nearly shot a spell at her aunt.

"i'm sorry, dear," said her Aunt Edmina, looking apologetic. The woman had light blonde hair put up in a perfectly proper wifely bun and dainty robes that made her look even younger than her twenty-four years. She was her uncle's wife—the pureblood heir, Redgemond Dagworth-Granger, that her father had been replaced by once her grandparents realized he was a squib. She'd only met him once when she was four and he'd been a kind but rather awkward teenager,though she would never forget his face when she had arrived at the Ministry front-desk, skin and bones and quite a sight, and asked for her uncle. She'd been brought to the Auror office, and he and her aunt (who she hadn't even known existed) came in.

She'd nearly screamed when they'd both hurried over and hugged her. Ever since her attack, she couldn't bear to be touched.

"We thought you were dead," said her uncle at the office, not being able to hide his tears. "Oh Merlin, Hermione, we need to get you to Mungo's, my God, _why is she just sitting here_?!—"

And after that it was a blur and a month and a half later she was still in the hospital. She hated it with everything within her. She'd been cleared of the infected wounds, the parasites, the lice—and most of her hair with it, leaving it hanging forlornly around her ears.

The scars though, left by Emmerich Hesseline, would remain—slurs, swearwords in German and English, and slashes cut from the base of her neck and down her body to her legs. It was Hesseline's typical modus operandi, but Hermione, unlike most of the other girls, lived to tell the tale. Sometimes, on bad nights, she wished she hadn't. But it was a small comfort that Hesseline was dead and, with a high collar and skirts down to her ankles, they weren't able to be seen.

Her Uncle Redge bent over and picked up his wife's knitting needles. He had the same frizzy brown hair as she and her father it made her sad and nostalgic for him. She had a desperate hope that he was being kept alive due to his skills as an arcane researcher—she'd learned, on the run for the past near two years, that researchers were often carried off to Nurmengard.

"Lunch should be here soon since you slept in," said Redge. His smile was tired and she knew why—because as soon as he said lunch she frowned.

"I just woke up. I'm not hungry," she said, though she knew she'd lose this argument. Making her eat was a never-ending battle. They had learned quickly that she didn't want to eat and only ate when she had to or was about to faint, if even then. She'd gotten so used to not having food and she'd so carefully spaced it out to make it last that it had made her feel bad to eat at all. Even now in the hospital she didn't want to eat and they'd begun forcing her.

"Hermione, please," he coaxed. "You need to eat. They're keeping you here because you are too skinny."

The door opened, and Hermione startled again, but didn't point her wand this time.

"It has nothing to do with her being a skeleton," said the Auror by the door, Padraic Moody. Technically as the head of her guard on this shift he should be outside the door monitoring everyone who came in—but Hermione doubted anyone would try to get past Moody in a fight. He was a gruff man in his forties that was almost as scarred as her-they'd almost bonded over it. He jokingly called her his eldest child because he was so often in charge of the shift in her protection.

"Why am I still here, then?" asked Hermione. "I'm an easy target here in the hospital—anyone can come and go." But her eyes noticed the folder in his hand, her name in careful print, and she glanced up at him.

"You notice you've been sleeping more than usual?" ask Moody. He held up the folder. "Stole it from the healing station. Your file is listing you as potentially violent and so you're being consistently put on a low sedative. It looks like Healer Pimmon wants to put you in the Janus Thickney Ward as mentally disturbed. The sedative is in the food you aren't really eating, really, so luckily I brought you cookies free of anything except excess sugar and my wife's love."

Hermione's stomach dropped, and she ignored the angry comments her aunt and uncle made at this. She couldn't consistently be sedated. If anything went wrong, what would she do? She'd spent the last two years on the run, her time divided between seeking out information and items related to the Hallows Quest and avoiding the Hallowed Guard. Apparently that journal had been very important as she'd ended up on his most wanted list soon after disappearing—and the more information she gained and delayed his own efforts, the higher up she ended on the wanted list.

This explained, at least, why she felt disoriented when waking up.

"I can't stay here. I'm good as dead otherwise. We've already had one kidnapping attempt," she said.

At number fifteen, she was sitting up there with rebel leaders, heads of state, and a few choice researchers she was pretty sure also had information Grindelwald wanted—and it earned her, in coming to Britain, a full twenty-four hour security detail. Though she knew Moody was being pressured to figure out why Grindelwald wanted her so badly, he rarely asked her about it. No one actually believed it was due to blowing Emmerich Hesseline's intestines out, though that was what her official listed crime was.

"We'll get you home immediately," said Redge. He ran a hand through his hair. "We should have contested this sooner. They should never have given her medication without consulting us—"

"She ought to be moved to a safehouse. She will get food there and it'll be a less torturous process," said Moody.

"She will be going _home_ once we can get her released," said Redge to Moody, a bit defensive.

"Am I not going to get a say—" Hermione began before a familiar nurse-she forgot her name, as Hermione had come to hate them all-came in. She had two nurses come in behind her, defensive and wary. Ever since she'd attacked the doctor that had held her down to give her a shot, she'd always been attended by at least, usually three, members of the Mungo's staff in the room.

"Time for lunch, Miss Granger," she said. "Will you cooperate this time?"

"No," she said simply. "Considering my food is drugged, I will hex you if you bring that food in here." The nurse looked disdainful-unaware that Hermione would do it.

"No one is going to get her to trust food again if you're putting potions in it," said Moody. "You can take that tray back where it came from. She's being released within twenty-four hours by warrant of the MLE."

Someone cleared their throat and the nurses moved out of the way. It was Healer Pimmon, and upon seeing Moody he immediately sneered at him. "As usual, you're getting in the way of me caring for my patient," he said, shooing the nurses out. He was a stocky, mustached-man and he had a constant air of disapproval at everything. "She is severely underweight and if she is not eating then she needs to be fed one way or another."

Moody waved the folder. "Force feeding her sedatives without her knowledge-or her family's or even that of her _security detail_? You're putting my charge in danger and I got a nice warrant for her release in the morning."

"Are you daft?" asked the healer. Moody grinned and handed him the red slip of paper.

Pimmon turned to Edmina and Redge. "Are you willing to restrain your niece if she refuses food again at your home? And god knows if you even have decent food in the safe houses, if you make her go."

Hermione had not been very talkative since she arrived. She'd been so used to being quiet for her safety and due to being on her own that it had become somewhat unusual and awkward for her to speak up. However, them talking over her about her condition and where she'd go made her angry.

"As I am seventeen," she said, "I make my own decisions of where I go. And I am going home. I will eat there and it is not safe for me to remain in the hospital-especially considering _you're sedating m_ e and acting as if I'm mad when my life is actually in danger." She had to bite back her rage, but she met his eyes and made it very clear that she was furious. "I won't be eating anything further from Mungo's."

"You are not _mentally_ fit to be making such decisions, considering your violent tendencies and paranoia," said the healer. "As your healer, if you are not fit to make decisions then that falls to-"

"Her closest relatives, not you," said Moody blandly. "And she is perfectly stable. She is not unduly paranoid—it is completely valid, considering her situation."

"I was nearly kidnapped in the middle of the night!" she said. "It's only been a month since then. I think that says more than anything that I'm not paranoid."

"I suggest you get those discharge orders ready, Pimmon," said Moody. "Her car will be here at nine."

Hermione smirked at the healer as the man's angular face went an angry shade of red. "I'll discharge her, but I'm going to be putting in protests through the higher staff of Mungo's. I'm not letting you take my patients out of the hospital to waste away."

"And we'll hire out lawyers, and the MLE will refute those requests as well," said Redge. "She will be leaving and we're picking her up at nine."

Pimmon glared but tersely nodded before stiffly storming out, closing the door harder than necessary.

"You're coming home, Hermione!" said Edmina, beaming. "Oh goodness, I should make sure the house is nice and ready for you. I had your room ready for you ages ago, of course, but still, I should spiff up the house a bit."

"It's fine," said Redge, but he didn't look happy at all even as he gave Hermione a smile. "I don't think Hermione would want a surprise party, Edmina."

Judging by her aunt's blush and quickly turning back to her knitting, she had been planning just that.

Moody limped over, setting his cane against the wall and sitting edge of her bed. "Eldest," he said, addressing Hermione, "you're the fifteenth most wanted person by Grindelwald and you want to go to a townhouse? You're a sitting duck there."

"You assured me, Moody, that our home has been made perfectly secure," said Redge.

"As much as a fancy little place like that can be!" he replied. "It's not saying a lot."

"Moody," Hermione said. "If I am taken to a safehouse where no one knows where I am as soon as an Auror spy or _imperioed_ one takes a shift I am as good as in Grindelwald's hands. At least in London I am safer due to being more in public. And I can defend myself in close quarters."

Moody looked grim and mutinous but said, "I'm going to have to redo the Auror schedule now that watch duty will be moved to transporting you home and your townhouse now. Glad though. The hospital is far too open-anywhere is better than here. After that kidnapping attempt last month I wanted you out but even I could tell you weren't well enough to leave yet. Now, though." As if he wasn't having such a serious conversation with her, he took the bag of cookies he'd promise out of his bag.

"Grindelwald knows where I am so he keeps trying," she said, looking dubiously down at the cookies.

"Eat," said Moody. "My wife made them."

"Moody, you married a suspect you met accused of poisoning her husband."

Moody snorted. "She'd have insisted we adopt you if Redge and Edmina hadn't taken you in-she made them with love. Eat them and I can tell her I got you to eat all of them. She'd be thrilled."

She ate as much as she could force down her throat, which was about three of the six cookies. As she ate, Hermione watched her aunt get excited as she mentally planned what to for Hermione's homecoming. Her uncle looked more cheery, too, than she'd seen him since her arrival. She hadn't known him well enough to see the stress on his face until it was alleviated some.

"Edmina and I are going to head home to get ready. We'll be back in the morning to pick you up," said Redge a few hours later, after urging her to eat a few more cookies and Edmina discussing how her room looked (she'd wanted it to be a surprise, but Edmina was too excited). Moody had left already, replaced by a guard outside who'd given her a wave but otherwise was just be watchful outside and occasionally talked to the nurses passing by.

"Sure," she told him. "You guys have a good night. I'll see you in the morning."

"You're such a dear," said Edmina, patting the bed next to Hermione, having quickly learned that physical affection was not wanted-but that indirect affection was okay. "I'll bring you some nice clothes! And a hat! Oh goodness, I'm so excited. I won't get a wink of sleep, I just know it."

"She probably won't," said Redge, giving Hermione a smile. "And I probably will wake up to her having put up streamers—but I'll keep the welcome home celebration to a minimum." Edmina lightly smacked him, and he laughed.

Hermione couldn't help but smile seeing them happy-and happy for her to come with them. "I won't mind streamers." They were painfully sweet and loving people. She hadn't been sure the reaction she'd receive when she had arrived, and had been prepared to make it on her own. It had been a shot in the dark-and potentially facing rejection-when she went up to the Ministry desk and asked for her aunt and uncle. They hadn't even hesitated in taking her in, and she didn't have the words to express her gratitude.

She often wondered if she ought to go out on her own regardless, as this was so dangerous for them. Were they aware? She knew Moody had talked with them, warded their house, heard about the kidnapping attempts-but did they understand beyond an intellectual level? Did they feel obligated to the point of their own danger?

After she was admitted to Mungo's, and had insisted that they didn't need to support her as it was dangerous-but they had been emphatic about it and had refused to abandon her. It had also been very, very strange for other people too to come out of the woodwork-her grandfather, the one parent who had not disowned her father, and her grandmother, who _had_ disowned her father and yet seemed to be trying to make arrangements for Hermione-though Hermione refused to see her.

Hermione would happily burn her grandmother's money, honestly. She hated that woman and hated that the first time the woman had walked in the door they'd looked at each other and had realized they looked so much similar that they could have been the same person born years apart.

But, luckily, her grandmother wasn't here now and hopefully would not visit the house often. She could always hide in her room if it came to that.

* * *

It got late and the sounds of the hospital grew less loud as people settled down and fewer healers and nurses did rounds. The nurses did not force her dinner this time—clearly they had all heard that she was being released tomorrow and that she had refused food.

Hermione couldn't sleep-she was so relieved to be getting out of the hospital and going to a real home and a real bed. It had been so long since she'd had that, and even as she closed her eyes and tried to sleep she couldn't.

Hermione stiffened when she heard the door open. She cracked her eyes open just barely enough to see and saw it was Healer Pimmon. No, he was the _last_ person she wanted to talk to so she kept her eyes open only just cracked enough to barely see. He didn't notice that she was awake.

She assumed once he saw she was "asleep," he'd leave. However, he didn't. Immediately, alarm bells went off in her head. He walked over to the bed—why were his footsteps muffled _shit_ —and she realized that he had a syringe in his hand.

In one clear motion, she grabbed her wand from under her pillow then rolled away from him off the bed. She quickly scrambled up, and yelled " _Somnus_!"

He dropped the syringe and dodged. If he had time to get his wand ready and fight back, she was at a severe disadvantage so she sent several quickly spells at him-a stunner, a _petrificus totalus_ , and an _impedimenta_ —things that were so quick to cast that he'd have very little time to block them. She sent them all one right after the other in quick succession.

He went down, thank Merlin, frozen in an odd angle and hitting the wall. Hermione ran to the door and, guessing someone would be outside to aid Pimmon, she shot a stunner as soon as she opened it. A young man dressed in a healer's robe went down, though a stinging hex momentarily stopped her.

 _Take me alive, as usual,_ she thought. Her Auror guards didn't move and she stunned them-they'd clearly been _imperioed_ , but luckily only to stand by and not ask questions rather than attack her as well.

At that, there was commotion at seeing people falling unconscious outside her door. Hermione carefully stepped out into the hallway and someone sent a spell at her. She put up a blocking spell. Luckily for her a nurse realized something was wrong and, rather than shoot at Hermione, knocked out the stranger.

"Call the Aurors!" said Hermione. "Hallowed Guard are in the hospital!" She didn't stop to see the nurses's reaction but ran down the hallway, her heart going a mile a minute and looking out for anyone that could be strange or unusual. Any nurse or healer she met made her wary but no one stopped her until she was turning down the hall, almost to the door to the stairwell, and ran into Redge.

"Hermione?!" he asked. Hermione held up her wand.

"What are you doing here? What did I name the stuffed rabbit you gave me when I met you?"

He held up his hands. "Plutarch. Edmina and I couldn't sleep so she asked me to stay with you for the night. What's going on?"

"Pimmon was a spy," she said. "I have to get to Healer Goiter's floo! Go to the main nurse's station and stay out of the way until the Aurors arrive."

"I'm coming with you," he said immediately.

"Uncle Redge," she said, exasperated. "They need to keep me alive. They'll try to kill you and they _are_ going to be guarding the stairwell. Go!" And with that she turned and kept running, not bothering to check and see if he was behind her. She'd taken up too many precious seconds that they were realizing she was escaping to warn him. Sure enough, she heard him running behind her.

Redge being with her scared her far more than facing the guards alone. He had no experience and probably hadn't practiced dueling since he'd graduated Hogwarts, maybe not even since he'd been in fifth year. She had to protect him but also had to make sure, above all else, to not get captured. Grindelwald couldn't have the information she'd collected.

So when she opened the stairwell door, she wasn't thinking anymore about escape. No, she was on the offensive. She had to take them down before they could go for her—or Redge.

She put up a defensive shield as soon as she opened the door, and she heard him gasp when there was the reverberating gong sound of stunners bouncing off of the shield. She looked for and found the first attacker through her shield, and ran through it in order to fire on him. The man went down and she immediately pulled Redge close to her and put up a second shield. She felt her stomach drop as she saw something very nasty hit where Redge had been only seconds before. Hearing his quiet choke of fear, though, was so much worse—but it also made her angry.

Angry was good. Anger, hate, and spite had moved her when she'd been hurt, starving, and miserable. It would serve her now.

"Keep physically close to me," she said as quietly as she could to him, trying to find where the second attacker was and praying there weren't more. She only had to get to the second floor-could they outrun his spells? Clearly he was on a higher floor and probably had his sights set to be able to shoot her if she tried to go out that door or any other level.

No, she needed to knock this one out. She couldn't risk dodging while dragging her uncle.

" _Two kidnapping attempts now and you can't get one girl out of a hosp_ —?" she said mockingly in German. Her words though, were cut off when someone inadvertently came into the stairwell. She saw the green light and the nurse collapsed, falling down the stairs to land in a crumpled heap on the next landing. She heard Redge's cry of horror distantly-however, she now had the guy on target. He'd given away his location.

She moved move three very big paces, opening herself up to be shot but getting him in perfect line of sight. She thought of how this man would kill her uncle as easily and carelessly as he'd killed that nurse.

" _Avada Kedavra_!" she yelled, the bright green light faster than his hex-she sidestepped the stunner. She saw the guard fall headfirst over the railing but she didn't wait to watch him fall-she grabbed her uncle, who was frozen, and dragged him up the stairs.

"Don't freeze up! There'll be more any minute," she said, and they ran up to the second floor. She very carefully opened the door to the office hallway, prepared to meet a Hallowed Guard or shooter on the other side of the door. However, stepping into the hallway, it was deserted. It wouldn't be for long, though. They went to the first door on the right, not caring whose office it was so much that each office would have a working floo.

"Cover me, if you can," said Hermione as she worked at unlocking the door. The doors themselves wouldn't be locked with anything extravagant, but she needed just a few seconds.

"I will," said Redge, his voice wavering with nerves but looking up and down the hall. He, smart man, magically closed the door to the stairwell so that no one come through and surprise them.

She did a few spells, and on the third one, the office door opened. She sighed with relief and carefully opened the door. Luckily no one was in there. However, she heard running coming up the stairwell and someone jiggling the door handle.

" _Scheiße_!" she swore, and hurried into the room and Redge followed. They closed the door and he locked it, and kept guard. She quickly grabbed the floo powder. She reached out to him and he grabbed her arm, staying close as she yelled "The Auror's office!" It was just in time, too, as she'd heard the door blast open.

They tumbled out of the floo into the reception area of the Auror office. A couple of the officers on duty knew who they were, and came over quickly.

"Hallowed Guard in St. Mungo's," Redge said. Chaos erupted immediately, but she ignored it to turn to him.

"Are you okay?" she asked as two of the Aurors rushed them into a set of chairs at a table before hurrying themselves to call in backup that was off-duty to go secure Mungo's. "I don't think you got hurt but I couldn't look the whole—"

"I'm fine," he said. It was true in that he wasn't physically hurt. However, it was a lie. She could tell that in that he shaken and upset by the whole ordeal. "Are you?" he asked. He laced his fingers together and rested them on the table but she could tell his hands were still trembling.

She nodded. "Yes. Pimmon was a spy. I assume because we sprung on him at the last minute that I was leaving that he had to move up his timetable in having me taken. He tried to sedate me, thinking I was asleep, but I knocked him out. The other Aurors were imperioed to ignore the activity." She ignored the Auror that was quickly writing down what she was saying.

"Pimmon?" Redge asked, looking shocked and frightened.

"Yes. It's not surprising. He could have been Imperioed—he didn't look it or act like it, though-or he could have worked to make sure I was his patient. It would explain why he's wanted to do everything including putting me away in the Janus Thickney Ward."

Redge rested his elbows on the table and put his face in his hands for a moment, but then said. "We're safe now and that's all that matters."

That, however, made Hermione's stomach dropped as she remembered there was one other person who wasn't accounted for. "We need to send someone to check on Edmina," Hermione said quickly, and before Redge even had time to move, Hermione had gotten up and hurried to the floo.

"Granger, what are you doing?" asked one of the Aurors, an older woman named Marissa Fortescue, reaching out and pulling her away from the fireplace. She struggled out of the woman's grasp.

"There was an attempted kidnapping on me and I need to make sure my aunt is safe!"

"I'll go. You stay here," said the Auror, and she went through the floo. Redge came over to her, and Hermione realized he was making sure she didn't go through the floo as well.

"Edmina is probably safe," said Redge, though he sounded anxious. "They were after you, not us."

Hermione didn't say anything, but just stood rigidly by the floo. Several Aurors and a few people came and went-but after what felt like forever, the Auror came back with her aunt, her hair down and in a bathrobe and slippers. As soon as she saw Hermione and Redge, she ran over.

"Merlin, I couldn't believe it when she told me!" she said, hugging Redge and giving him a kiss. She looked him over and, reassured, she turned to Hermione and gave her a hug too-Hermione stiffened but returned the hug, trying to be understanding that Edmina was scared for her.

"Let's all sit down," said Redge, putting an arm around Edmina's shoulders. She nodded—and then put one arm around Redge's waist, and the other around Hermione's shoulders.

"It'll be awkward walking this way," her uncle said, trying to be light about it but he clearly was still shaken.

Edmina shook her head. "I don't want to let either of you go. My heart nearly stopped when I heard you two faced Hallowed Guard."

"We'll sit down and you can hold out hands," said Hermione, because that was safer to her than an arm around her shoulders—not to mention it would made defending them harder if she had to.

This seemed to soothe her aunt, and they sat down at a table full of mismatched, unorganized papers. Hermione took the seat at Edmina's right so she could give her non-dominant hand and kept her wand in her other.

Redge took her other hand and brought it to his lips and kissed it. "We're all right, Edmina."

"No you're not!" she exclaimed. "You're both in danger every moment! I'm so scared of losing you."

There was a stab of guilt. Her aunt was nearly crying at this point, holding their hands so tight that it almost hurt. She didn't even care that she was only in a nightgown, a bathrobe, and slippers—and her aunt was a very proper young woman.

"This is how it will always be for me," said Hermione quietly. "I'm sorry. I am so, so sorry you got caught up in this—" Hermione stopped, biting her lip because she'd choked up, but she took a deep breath and continued. "But you don't have to. I'm seventeen. You don't owe me anything and I want you safe. You both go home and I'll make my own way—once you have no connections to me you'll be safer."

She wasn't sure what to expect from her aunt and uncle—though, honestly, it wasn't both a mixture of anger and crying.

Edmina turned sharply. "Do you think that we will just abandon you? When you need people most? Hermione, you are my niece and Redge and I knew the risks when we agreed to take you in. It was never, _ever_ an option for us to not be there for you."

"No, it was never an option," said Redge, and Edmina and Hermione both were visibly alarmed when they noticed his eyes were wet. "I wouldn't leave a complete stranger, Hermione, alone in the situation you're in, let alone family. And after what happened to Jace? After the fact my parents essentially abandoned him and replaced him with me? I owe him for my parents failing him—and the least I can do is take care of you when you need it."

Edmina leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. "You're wonderful, love."

"Awful things might happen to you," said Hermione quietly.

"Awful things will happen regardless. It's war," said Edmina. "Stop protesting, dear. You're not getting rid of us so easily. I'm afraid you're stuck with us now."

Redge laughed weakly, and had to wipe away a tear that escaped.

Hermione felt like crying too. "All right, then. But I don't feel like I'm 'stuck' with you. I feel very lucky. I had hoped…I had hoped, despite the danger, but I would rather you be safe than me be comfortable. But thank you. I won't let you regret it."

"Even if the worst happens," said Redge. "We won't regret it."


	4. Chapter Two

AN: Due to lupus flares, school, and jobs I haven't had any time to write or edit any of my fanfics. However, finally, I just sat down and finished this chapter. Hopefully you'll enjoy it! This is setting up Hermione and her situation with her relatives/fears about living "normally" again-the stuff detailing what she got while on the run will be addressed in the next chapter.

Trigger warnings: PTSD stuff but that's about it. Shocking, I know.

Note: J.K. Rowling owns all the rights to Harry Potter. This is a fan work made out of love for the series.

* * *

After the incident at the hospital, talking to what seemed to be dozens of aurors, getting checked over (needlessly) by a healer, and being fretted over by Moody and her family-they finally took her to the townhouse. They went through the floo, with Moody insisting on coming.

"My aurors checked the house and there's been no disturbance," he said, coming back after briefly speaking to them. "None of them are bespelled either."

Hermione, though, frozen when she walked through the floo into the house. It was barely dawn and the house was just barely being lit with low lit lamps but she house was decorated in shades of green and white, with vines-the wasn't sure if they were real or fake-in pots around the room and hanging along the side of the stairwell leading to the second floor.

"Mother and Father call it 'Ivy House' because it was covered in ivy when they bought it-not terribly original but we stuck with it and we've decorated to match it," said Redge, smiling but looking at bit concerned at Hermione's wide-eyed look as she took everything in.

Hermione didn't notice his concern. She was reeling at the reality of she would be _living_ here. She'd be in a home that that has chairs, couches, a kitchen-and, somewhere, a bedroom with clothes and a bed she could call her own. She'd been sleeping outdoors, in broken-into homes, in the guest rooms of sympathizers, guiltily in the homes of Imperioed Muggles, in abandoned or derelict homes, and barns for the past two years-or, more recently, in the hospital. She hadn't had a home in years.

She was torn between heart-wrenching relief and a sense of claustrophobia. She'd rejected the nurses's hushed insults of her behavior being like a wild animal—skittish, aggressive, and territorial—but right now she felt like the animal they'd compared her too, trying to get used to the nice, new cage she'd been put in.

She took a deep breath. This wasn't the time to let her panic set in. First, before anything else, she needed to see the house. She turned to Moody "How many are on duty and where are they?"

"I have two out front by the door under magic so the Muggles don't notice, and two in the back garden. You ought to meet them-you'll be seeing them a lot."

It was a fair point. She needed to see for herself if these aurors were trustworthy—she had faith in Moody but she'd long learned to trust no one but herself.

Hermione went to the front door and went outside. It was hard to believe, looking out on the street, where she was. Even in the barely lit morning light she was clearly in a very beautiful area of London with pleasant sidewalkd and trees and flowers blooming.

"You must be Granger," said the woman to her right, sharp-nosed and her hair beginning to gray. "I'm Yvonne Kurling."

"Refugee?" asked Hermione, noting the Polish accent. That could be good or bad—an ally who understands or a potential spy.

Kurling shook her head, however. "Moved here because the Polish Defense Force doesn't take on women, so I moved here. But you ought to go inside-we hear you had a rough night."

"I'm Nicholas Fudge," said the man on her left, much younger than the woman with him. There was a twist to his smile that said he was handsome and knew it. Hermione wanted to curl in on herself and escape that potential, even if he never said a word anything beyond pure politeness, it was painful. "I'm Yvonne's partner-"

"Trainee," Kurling said, cutting him off. There was a severeity to her that said no-nonsense—it made Hermione feel a lot more at ease about security. "Don't worry, he's dedicated."

Hermione nodded. "I just wanted to check everything"

"We have the house protected for you. Get some rest, Miss Granger. You look dead on your feet," Fudge said.

Hermione nearly snorted because her exhaustion had nothing to do with the recent events but merely a side effect of being unable to remember the last time she'd had a decent night's sleep. But, instead, she said, "Thank you, and both of you have a good night." She closed the door before she could hear Fudge's reply.

Hermione, satisfied the outside was covered, turned to the indoor areas. She waved her wand, brightening the lamps a bit, and went into the room to her left. She glanced in and clearly was the sitting room-it had touches of personal things, such as Edmina's sewing basket or the glass of alcohol that was clearly Redge's sitting on a side table.

"Hermione, would you like a tour?" asked Edmina, making Hermione jump.

Before Edmina could apologize for spooking her, Hermione said, "That would be nice-but I'm also checking the house's security. I need to note the safe and unsafe places and see what can be done to make them more secure."

"O-oh. Alright, dear," said Edmina, stumbling a bit over her words.

Hermione heard Moody's cane as he followed her into the sitting room. "What's your opinions, Eldest?"

There was a fireplace, probably the family personal floo, against the far wall from the door. To her left was bookshelves, a decorative table, and two green armchairs more towards the middle of the room each with a side table. On the left side of the room were large French windows and a couch facing away from it and towards the armchairs.

"The windows need to be reinforced. This is clearly the main living area, but the windows make Aunt Edmina sitting on the couch in too much danger-she'd have no time to do anything and would get blasted by glass shards if it went through. Switch the couch and chairs, maybe?" she asked. "And we could put invisible bars on the windows. I heard about them while I was on the run." Well, more like she had been trying to break in and blocked by them when she had been trying to get Hallows information, but she wouldn't mention that. "It wouldn't block the light so the view would be reserved. But the couch and chairs need to be close to the door and facing the windows."

She knew if she glanced over at her family she'd find their troubled expressions, so she didn't look at them as she left the sitting room. She left the sitting room and crossed the main entranceway into the parlor across the hall. She suggested the same treatment for the windows-and also suggested making this the public floo but still secured and the one in the sitting room being a private floo and only open by passwords.

"That way, in the event of an attack, it's a potential escape without it being tampered with or an entranceway for Hallowed Guard as this one might be. We should keep it heavily locked unless guests are expected," Hermione said.

"Fair points, and we've already began on that. The other floo can be more secured though."

Hermione went around the rest of the house. Hermione agreed the backdoor should just be barred completely except by passwords of family members wanting to go out and enjoy the garden. "A back door is such an easy entry point," said Hermione.

When she came into the kitchen, she glanced at the floor. "Is there a cellar or room under the kitchen?"

"No, why do you ask?" questioned her uncle, who had followed after Moody. Her aunt, however, had chosen not to do so and Hermione didn't blame her for being upset at finding out her perfectly normal house had so many dangerous access points.

Hermione didn't have the words to respond for a moment, remembering, before explaining. "In Germany it was common for wizarding homes to have an extra pantry below the kitchen. The Hallowed Guard would-and will-rip up the kitchen floors looking for any hiding places. They did so at my home. But, since there's nothing under there, it will just luckily slow them down."

Hermione had to turn around and head back in the direction of Moody and her uncle to continue on and found her uncle looking horrified, glancing at the kitchen floor as if it had somehow become much more sinister.

Hermione went through the rest of the house-ignoring her room for last, hearing Edmina clearly trying to distract herself by tidying up her new bedroom-and noted the weak spots. "The biggest danger is being on the second floor and the Hallowed Guard coming in from the front entrance. There's no exit and they essentially would have anyone upstairs cornered." Hermione tried not to think about he trauma she survived on a staircase as she said this. Her scars, not new by any stretch of the imagination, felt raw regardless with those horrible memories at the edges of her thoughts.

"Brooms, probably, in all of the bedrooms and the library," said Hermione. "It isn't the safest way to escape but it's better than certain death on the second floor. It's a shame that there's no bedrooms on the first floor."

Moody's cane clunked down the hallway behind her. "Townhouses weren't designed for war functionality. They're for rich people to live in during the social seasons. And those sorts of folks do a lot of entertaining."

Hermione felt her stomach lurch a little. Strange people everywhere in her house, near her aunt and uncle, many of those wealthy people probably pro-Grindelwald. "Maybe some vetting of guests would be in order, maybe, Uncle Redge?"

"Yes, yes, of course. There's a list of people allowed to visit already. We went over it weeks ago with Moody's team."

"It leaves out a lot of your Aunt Edmina's family," said Moody. "Her eldest sister and two brothers are pro-Grindelwald and the rest of them are neutral. And of course, your grandparents-"

"Don't mention those people to me," snapped Hermione. "They're not my grandparents and I'm not their grandchild. They made it clear they only have one son."

There was a heavy silence after her retort, but she refused to apologize for being angry at the people who disowned her father-if they hadn't, she wouldn't exist, but might he be alive today?

However, her anger was cooled when she glanced into the library. She quickly could tell it was a rather generic library, minus a heavy focus on potions-the famous Dagowrth-Granger specialty-but the nice chairs, open windows, desks, and the smell of books drew her in like a moth to a flame.

"I like the library too," said Redge. "And I have several books in my study that you can borrow if you're interested."

She sat down in one of the chairs, glancing up at Moody and her uncle. The sun was higher in the sky now, but she believed she'd covered every potential issues within the house's interior. "We should discuss the exterior threats another day-preferably with the sun out."

Moody snorted. "And maybe after some sleep. However, before I go, I want to see something a bit happy. Go check out your room-your own, personal bedroom."

Redge began discussing about how Edmina and him had gotten her a few things-"not too much, as we wanted you to make it your own"-but he clearly missed what Moody had not. She had her own bedroom in her own home again. She hadn't had that since before the attack. Hermione found herself in a bit of a daze as they went down the hall and Redge, clearly proud, opened the door for her.

Edmina was already inside, fiddling with the decorative pillows on the bed as if they somehow were not already perfect. She turned, however, and beamed-tiredly, but pleased regardless-when the three of them came into the room.

"Ta da!" said Edmina, beaming. "We changed the bedspread to something more your style-Redge mentioned that you said you liked blue at one point so we went with blues."

The decorations were very feminine and still keeping with the ivy theme-navy blue flowers and green vines hanging around the windows and a navy bedspread with white patterning. It certainly wasn't her old room-blues, browns, and greens to match the old books that tended to be everywhere in the house-but it still was quite sweet.

"It's beautiful," said Hermione. "I'm glad you picked blue-it is my favorite color, as you noted.

"Marvelous!" said Edmina, looking much brighter after Hermione's vocal approval. "Now go open the wardrobe," she said in the excited tone of someone who is very happy to be giving a gift.

She went over and opened it, not sure what to expect. Hermione, however, found in the wardrobe quite the selection of dresses-she was quite surprised to see so many at all. Rationing had not hit the wixen world as hard as the Muggles had been, but new and decent cloth was in short supply, as well as many other staples, according to the nurses she'd overheard complaining at St. Mungo's. But Edmina and Redge had somehow managed to supply her with nine dresses or shirt and skirt pairs, two cloaks, three hats, a black pair and a white pair of winter gloves, a pair of white decorative gloves, both decorative and winter scarves, and two new leather pairs of witch's boots—not dragonhide since the dragon reserve and areas where dragons were harvested had been taken over by both Hitler and Grindelwald but still very nice, clearly not secondhand leather.

"How did you manage to get me so much?" Hermione asked, turning to her aunt and uncle. She couldn't hide her shock. "This all must have cost a fortune on the black market."

Edmina smiled, but shook her head. "We didn't go through the black market. Goodness, how would we even find it? No, we've been making do, as they say. I took some old dresses from my sisters, your grandmother, and my wardrobe then took them to Madam Malkins to be made into dresses. They turned out quite nice, really, and the shop has been running a clothing donation drive so that old clothes can be made into new ones so I could get you even more clothes. Madam Malkin even put the shoes aside so that I could get them for you." Hermione knew, even with all that, it must have been exorbitantly expensive.

"I hope you don't mind the dresses are a bit second-hand," Edmina said, looking embarrassed to say it at all.

They were nicely done-quote beautiful, really-and Hermione touched the old patterns and fabrics. The idea of wearing them was appealing, though she tried to ignore that some of these had belonged to her grandmother-or why the old hag had bothered at all unless Edmina had lied. But Bette Dagworth-Granger, when Hermione had only seen her long enough to demand she leave her hospital room, hadn't look like she was easily fooled (just like her, too, the resemblance uncomfortably uncanny in both personality and looks).

"Honestly, they're beautiful. I can't believe you got me so many things and put so much work into it. Thank you, for this and everything," Her voice had gotten quieter as she got emotional, realizing everything. It wasn't just the clothes-there was a bedspread that was more to her taste than probably Edmina would have made for a guest room. How much had that cost? Even if they hadn't changed everything in this converted guest room they had at least bought her some things they thought would make the room feel more personal for her.

After looking through the clothes, she even found a purse and some nice shoes, though she'd keep her bag with its undetectable extension charm that she'd threatened a wardsmith into securing for her to the teeth so that only she could open it of her own free will and under no other circumstances.

She felt her eyes start to tear up and she quickly wiped them. Her aunt and uncle wanted her to feel at home here and had put so much effort into doing so-and she didn't deserve it. They were not safe taking her in and she had still wanted them to do so despite all the dangers. On top of it all, not only had they but they tried their best to make it nice for her: nice clothes with long sleeves and long skirts, dark stockings and high socks to hide scars with shorter skirts, and trinkets and accessories to make her feel pretty when she and they all knew she felt like the farthest from pretty possible with all the scars all over her. "This is all so nice," she said, hating she couldn't hide how emotional she was, and couldn't look at them or she'd get even more weepy.

"Jace and I didn't grow up here," said Redge, after giving her a moment to collect herself-everyone ignoring the big sniffle from Edmina-"but during the social season we'd stay here. This was his room then. It's fitting it should be your room now for as long as you want to live with us and call Ivy House home."

"When I find him he can have it back," she said, looking at Redge. "Thank you, though, for letting me have it."

But Hermione hated the doubt, grief, and pity she saw on her aunt and uncle's faces. No one believed her father was alive-but he'd been a major researcher and Grindelwald kept many intellectuals and scholars alive to aid him. She was sure her father was in one of those hideaways, working for Grindelwald-and she would get him out. Moody, who was leaning on the doorframe, had his mouth in a grim line.

"He's a researcher and Grindelwald recruits them. He could be in one of his facilities," said Hermione. "It'd be a wasted death to not keep such a scholar when he is looking for them."

Moody shook his head. "We've heard nothing about Jace Granger, Eldest. I'm sorry. But there's no shame in keeping hope alive."

There was, somewhat. Grindelwald might eventually reach out to her for an exchange-her father for the information she'd gathered about the Hallows. She wasn't sure, honestly, if she wouldn't turn them over.

"We should get a bite of breakfast or a bit of soothing tea before bed! Goodness, I'm knackered, and I'm sure all of you are too," Edmina said, trying to clear the tension.

"After all that? I'm not sure if I will be able to sleep at all or if I'll sleep like the dead as soon as my head touches the pillow," Redge replied, smiling at Edmina. Their love for each other was subtle but clear in their exchanged looks, and Hermione felt comforted seeing it. She'd never have that-the thought of being touched by anyone, especially men, repulsed her-but it was nice to see others were happy.

"I've got you in good hands, then," said Moody. "I ought to head home myself."

"Maybe you'll get a break from me for a few days," said Hermione, trying to crack a joke.

Moody snorted as he left her room, heading to the floo. Hermione followed behind him, though her aunt and uncle headed to "My wife will drag me over tomorrow after I wake up. She will arrive with food to see how you are. You want to see four kids running around? That's your punishment for keeping me here so long."

"Such a terrible punishment. You should be a torture specialist."

"One of my kids will hopefully turn out to be as snarky as their eldest sister," said Moody.

"You're going to confuse the triplets into thinking I'm actually their sister."

He grabbed a bit of floo powder. "You act like that's a bad thing. Night, Eldest. Or morning, rather."

"See you soon," Hermione said, hating goodbyes as she watched him leave through the green floo fire. She'd seen too many people go off and never come back-it felt better to say see you soon then have any potential finality.

Alone for the first time in the new house, she took a deep breath and looked around. _Home._ It was terrifying, wonderful, and felt like a cage all at once. And, in a sweep of an evening, she officially was living with her aunt and uncle-and now officially making them targets. These people, not much older than her, didn't deserve this level of danger.

She would protect them with everything she had. However, that meant far more than just being ready to attack Hallowed Guard at any moment's notice. No, she had to stop him for good-and the tools to begin that were still safely in her beaded bag. After claiming exhaustion and skipping tea with her aunt and uncle, she went upstairs.

Once in her room, she warded it as heavily as she could, closed the curtains, and silenced the area around her. It was time to look at the items and information she had collected while on the run for so long and think about her next move.


	5. Chapter Three

Author Note: Triggers are mentions of rape, mentions of force feeding, and implied disordered eating. Nothing graphic, however.

This chapter was brutal to write and I don't want to share how many drafts of this chapter exist. However, it is finally here and after this point, the story will be much easier to write.

Good news, however! I got into grad school! An _Ivy League_ graduate school! Bad news is that I'm working two jobs to survive as I do so along with part-time school. I honestly will never be one of those authors with regular updates but I will finish Temperance if it freaking kills me.

* * *

 _About three weeks after Hermione's admittance into the hospital, Auror Padriac Moody came in with another man she hadn't met before. He was a thin, mustached man in a black suit and brown suede robes, nearly just a long jacket-younger than Moody. He strode ahead of Moody, leaving him to close the door as he took the seat closest to her. She'd been a bit sleepy before but her whole body tensed in the bed, wanting more distance. She shifted to sit up and rest against the wooden hospital bed headboard and moved as far away from him on the bed as possible. Moody sat in his usual chair in the middle, close to her but not overwhelming._

 _"Miss Granger, I believe you've met Auror Moody but allow me to introduce myself. I'm Jasper McKinnnon. We came to discuss your security concerns," he said, wearing a small but friendly smile. The fact he was looking so gentle meant he was lying or that he thought her weak and helpless-neither of which was good for her. The fact he didn't introduce himself as the head of the Auror Department made her doubly suspicious. Did he really think she wouldn't know the chain of command of the department guarding her?_

 _"Without my aunt and uncle? They said they would like to take me in," she said. In reality, she was torn with guilt about the situation...but bringing more people in lessened any potential threats._

 _Auror McKinnon waved his hand. "A more detailed security plan will be sorted out with you, security detail staff, and your family. Auror Moody will be in charge of that."_

 _"Then what brings in the head of the department?" she asked._

 _She glanced at Moody, getting an assessment of the situation. The moment she'd arrived they'd taken a shine to each other-he'd sat with her when she'd wanted to throw up her food, distract her from the force-feeding, and brought his wife and children in. He'd jokingly said he spent more time with her at the hospital than his kids these days and thus was now his eldest. The nickname had stuck. He looked grim now, however, and it told her all she needed to know about this meeting. It wasn't about her security-but questioning why she needed it._

 _McKinnon sat down and took out a manila folder out of what looked to be a normal leather briefcase. He just radiated Muggle normalcy that made her mistrustful._

 _"You've been on the run for over a year and a half, involved in several resistance skirmishes as well as known thievery of various pureblood families on the continent. You have four Hallowed Guard and one Elder Squad allegedly killed with your own wand-and permanently injured General Emmerich Hesseline. That is, supposedly, what has put you at number twenty-three on Grindelwald's wanted list. However, no other Elder Squad injury or killing has resulted in both a court and legal summons-and certainly not a large-scale attempt to capture said target. Grindelwald has only offered a reward should you be returned alive and relatively uninjured," said McKinnon._

 _Moody cleared his throat. "Technically, you started out at about forty-one but everyone else keeps dying. However, luckily for you, both Jasper and I are higher up on the list."_

 _McKinnon frowned and glanced over. Briefly, the two aurors met eyes. Moody frowned and reluctantly looked away. "Do I have the facts correct?" asked McKinnon._

 _"To a degree," said Hermione. She'd long had to make up a story to explain the trail of death and destruction that followed behind her. "Grindelwald wants me because I, too, was studying arcane magic with my father and helped him. I did blow out Hess-his guts, however." She felt sick even thinking about the existence of Emmerich Hesseline. The fact he was in her search team was something that kept her up at night and haunted her dreams when she did finally manage to sleep. It was hard to focus when those horrific memories of the past swirled at the edges of her thoughts, preparing to intrude at any moment._

 _"What happened that night-"_

 _"My home was attacked, Father was taken, I was hurt, Hesseline was hit by my spell, I hid in a hidden hideaway built for that purpose, they raided my father's library, and I was taken care of by a family friend until I was okay. I am not going into further detail about that night," she said sharply, no longer playing innocent._

 _"It is pertinent-"_

 _"Jasper," said Moody. "Drop it. We got the gist."_

 _"What books did they take? Do you know what they were looking for?" asked McKinnon, ignoring Moody._

 _She could feel her breathing growing more rapid and her stomach churning. It wouldn't be long until the fear made her nonfunctional, gasping in blind panic-but she doubted McKinnon cared. "I was bleeding out and was taken from the house before I could look over my father's library." Angry, she pulled away the bed sheet and pulled her gown, more like a Victorian nightgown than a modern hospital attire, to just below her knees and pulled up the sleeves past her elbows-putting her scars on display. "I'm sure there is a lurid drawing of my scars in that file but let me show you to make it clear-I was cut up to ribbons and I would have bled to death without aid. By the time I was ready to get out of bed again the library was cleaned out down to my father's journals. They were looking for all the resisting scholars secretly meeting throughout the country, Auror McKinnon, as Grindelwald uses them for whatever purposes he deems them necessary for. You most likely know what he's searching for more than I."_

 _A truth and a lie. Grindelwald certainly wanted more than the Hallows-and yet even the name of the guards alone told what he sought the most. She was sure the MLE knew about his search for those items. However, she was taking the secret of her knowing and searching for the Hallows to the grave._

 _Hermione felt both shame and bitter satisfaction at McKinnon's smile fading and expression turning uncomfortable at the sight of her scars. She pulled the blanket back over her and rolled down her sleeves again. Glancing at Moody, she realized Moody was trying to hide his anger at his boss but wasn't doing a good job._

 _"If your father's library was cleaned out and he was captured-why were you only sought after you'd been on the run for a week? Miss Granger, what is it that Grindelwald is seeking from you?"_

 _"The information that he couldn't get from my father due to him not being magical, most likely. I also am a scholar he could use," she said. "However, I don't know anything else interesting. He may_ have _just been angry a teenage mudblood nearly killed one of his Elder Squad generals."_

 _It was satisfying to see the discomfort on McKinnon's face at her scars and use of that slur._

Hermione had been questioned multiple times on what led Grindelwald to continue to pursue her-and she had stuck to her story. It was obvious that she'd been attacked-but they couldn't employ morally gray methods of interrogation without stirring the anger of her family and Moody. He certainly knew she was hiding something and while she trusted him, she wanted no one to know the information she had. The fewer people that knew meant the less likely it was that her knowledge would end up in Grindelwald's hands-and, in the end, would he consider what she was doing Ministry business and report that information? It was good as in Grindelwald's hands if he managed that.

She would kill him before he could. Grindelwald did not know what the Hallows could do-but if he found out they would create an inferi army capable of casting magic then he'd do _nothing_ to ensure that all of his victims would be defiled by fighting for him post-mortem. No, she planned to take the secrets of the Hallows to the grave.

The other information she'd hidden from the aurors (and her healers) would also remain secret unless necessary. A witch or wizard could lose their magical abilities after trauma, and for some months after the attack while recovering her magic had been spotty. However, upon leaving and seeing magical places and people again, she realized that she'd also gained a magical gift despite it. That was a much more rare occurrence, probably pulled out by desperation-but she was grateful.

Magical people, places, and things all had their own magical signatures. Magic was like energy, colorful and vibrant wherever traces of it remained. Her newfound gift, unreliable at first but stronger with practice, was seeing those aural signatures. Ivy House, for instance, was wrapped in nature-based protection spell work meant to protect from the inevitable wear and tear of being a home rather than an attack. She could see, looking at the wall facing the back garden, faint gray tendrils glowing like a spiderweb covered in dew in the morning sun.

Another thing she had done while on the run was practice wandless nonverbal magic. The reality of potentially losing her wand had loomed over her and she'd decided to learn how to protect herself without it. It was slow going but, with practice, she would get better. Hermione raised her hand and locked the (obviously installed by Moody's orders) deadbolt to her bedroom The skill had become rusty from disuse - one she had practiced daily when she made camp for the night on the run-but now that she was no longer in the hospital she'd practice again. Depending on how hovering her aunt and uncle were out of the hospital, she might be able to practice even more than she'd been able to before. With that exciting thought, she willed the fringed cord to her desk lamp to turn on with only a moment's pause before her success. Smiling a bit, she took out her beaded bag.

Her father had gotten it enchanted for her on her eleventh birthday with an undetectable extension charm. She'd loved the purple beading on the bag...when she was eleven. It seemed garish now. But it had saved her life in more ways in one in having the convenience of an impossibly large bag that she was able to hide under her skirts if need be and light enough that she wasn't weighted down when needing to run. She'd keep this tacky purple bag over any of her aunt's beautiful purses.

At one point she had traded information about Grindelwald's location for an advanced enchantment on the bag so that no one could open it but her, even under Imperius. She'd known it was worth more than the information she'd given but she had a feeling her dirty, waif-thin appearance had garnered pity from the old Charms master. She couldn't open it with wandless due to that, so she got out the items she wanted to look at by hand.

The trick of an expanding charm is that when you reach in you have to think of exactly what you're looking for and, as always, thinking of her small collection of desperately wanted items made her pull out her copy of _Tales of Beedle the Bard_ first _._ It was merely a traditional copy her father had bought for her mother as a way to introduce her to the wizarding world many years ago and had been passed on to Hermione. It was generic—except for the tiny scrawl all throughout the text, written in pencil, quill, and pens of various colors depending on what writing devices Hermione had gained or lost throughout her journey. She placed it on the floor in front of her, the gold lettering on the cover faded and worn but for a few pieces of gold lettering gleaming under the lamplight.

Reaching into the bag, she pulled out Gideon's journal. She'd put it in her bag before the mayor's family had wondered why she hadn't shown up that morning and found her there. They had saved her life again, inadvertently, by keeping her from being found by the returning Hallowed Guard. But Hermione, in that recovery bed, had been consumed by the knowledge Gideon's journal had given her.

 _Hallowed Guard. The Tale of the Three Brothers. The intensity of the attack to find Gideon's journal-the stepson of Antioch Peverell, owner of the Elder Wand. The fact Grindelwald owned the wand. There was no way they weren't connected. Grindelwald was seeking the Deathly Hallows. It was obviously simple, once you thought about it, but she'd never thought a Dark Lord would take a children's story so seriously. It had seemed too silly-how could Death come as an entity and offer these things? It had to be metaphorical-and that was also the belief of those who took up the Hallows Quest._

 _Anyone who studied arcane magic knew about quests. Quests were serious things, built on prophecy and world-changing events. The belief was, according to seers, was that anyone could go on a quest but only those fated to be a part of it would have any impact. The Hallows Quest was one of the more famous ones-but she knew nothing about it besides the fact that the Deathly Hallows were a cloak, a wand, and a stone and that you became the Master of Death with all three. However, what being the Master of Death meant was one of the quest's mysteries._

 _She didn't care if she was part of some quest. It didn't matter-she had to stop Grindelwald from getting the rest of the Hallows. Before her father being captured-before her attack-she would have been awed at even the possibility of being part of a quest. Now? All that mattered was revenge for herself, her father, and everyone being targeted for their lack of blood purity._

 _She had to collect information first. Where to begin? She didn't know, but once she recovered she would not stay, though the family had been awe-inspiringly generous in offering to hide her. She knew they thought she was a Jewish woman who'd been found out and escaped, according to the couple's whispers, and Hermione knew the mayor would know the risks of hiding anyone without real papers. She would ease their minds and continue her quest once the wounds healed-and never see them again, as that knowing looking of pity the mayor's wife gave her made her sick with shame. The rape and torture couldn't be hidden._

Next out of her bag came another common book, but perhaps the single most useful thing she had acquired on her journey. The Hallows Quest was not terribly obscure. Many people wanted to be part of a grand adventure and had attempted to seek out the Hallows by following the known stops along the way. It had become especially popular, however, when the most famous quester, Gertrude Snicket, had written a thorough chart and history of the quest titled _The Hollows Quest: Mapping History_. In it, she told how in the fourteenth century, a bard and seer named Bartimaeus Beedle had a vision of the quest. In typical seer fashion, he laid out the quest in metaphor in his book of stories for children. It is seen as a knightly quest, in the vein of Sir Luckless of the Fountain of Faire Fortune, knightly virtues to complete in order to "not come to ill" in Snicket's words-well, to some at least. Alchemists had their own views on the quest and saw being the Master of Death as immortality brought about by alchemical means. Necromancers also quested but for very different reasons-to be the Master of Death is to gain more powers over life and death itself.

However, one thing was wrong that shifted everything regarding the quest-Gideon's journal made it clear that the birth and death dates for Ignotus's supposed tomb were at least one hundred years off. He and his brothers were contemporaries of the Hogwarts founders. That is the usual quest starting point-however, being in Germany combined with knowing the date is wrong meant she worked through gaining knowledge differently. The town where Beedle lived during his visions was impossible to get to due the town itself was Grindelwald's hometown and a major army base. Godric's Hollow was most likely equally under watch.

She'd spent over a year trying to beat Grindelwald to Hallows information and hadn't made as much progress as she would have liked. Beyond Gideon's journal and her tomb knowledge, she'd only had a few major successes-meeting the infamous Gertrude Snicket herself as she fled from Grindelwald as well, inadvertently grabbing a signed copy of Nicholas Flammell's book on the alchemical side of the quest from her father's library when she'd left home, and stealing several necromancer texts in what had been one of the more shameful moments of her time on the run.

Mostly she'd spent her time starving, hiding, and helping fellow runaways and resistance members rebelling against Grindelwald. She had helped them for six months, trying to formulate a plan and gather her bearings. The things she had seen in helping those who escaped...she wished she could have stayed but she had a larger purpose. If she ever faltered in thinking she'd made an impact, however, she remembered that Grindelwald himself was sending extensive forces attempting to retrieve her and had been since the attack.

She'd avoided trying to escape to Britain as it had become nigh impossible long before her family was attacked. Every port and potential apparition point across the border was heavily watched by Hallowed Guard. However, it became clear eventually that if she wanted to complete the quest and destroy the Hallows before Grindelwald she had to go to her father's homeland and, with guilt, into her aunt and uncle's care. Britain was where the three brothers had resided and, most likely, where the Hallows themselves were. If she wanted to beat him, she needed to gather them before he took over the Ministry. After that, he would have a much easier time in finding them.

And here she was-and now that she was out of the hospital it was time to begin.

She pulled out her other prizes, anxious that they were still there, and relieved that they were. The three necromancer texts, two in seemingly harmless plain hardcovers and one wrapped in leather, felt wrong sitting on the floor of her daintily decorated room. With her new ability, she could see the soft cloud of blackness left by residual Dark magic. She put them all back in her bag minus Wood's quest history text as she needed to chart where to go. The necromancer's texts were currently inaccessible due to being written in Russian-but she'd known the author's name on sight and had taken them. She knew Latin, several French dialects, Old English, Middle English, French, and Ancient Greek-but had never learned Russian. She hoped her aunt and uncle would think nothing of her looking into learning the language.

But first...the bed looked so comfortable. She hadn't slept since the attack. Surely planning could wait? She didn't even bother changing out of the day clothes her aunt had brought to the Ministry after the attack-merely took off her shoes. With the door locked, the window facing the back garden rather than the street, and aurors at all the exits, she finally felt safe for the first time in a long time. It was enough to let her fall into a restful sleep.


End file.
